


What We Do in the Time Loop

by punch_kicker15



Category: Palm Springs (2020), What We Do in the Shadows (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Relationships, Chromatic Yuletide, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:34:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28126203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punch_kicker15/pseuds/punch_kicker15
Summary: AU after the end of Season 2 of WWDitS: After the Nouveau Théâtre des Vampires debacle, Guillermo and the vampires escape to his grandmother's house in Palm Springs. Soon Guillermo finds himself at a wedding, where he stumbles upon one of those infinite time loop situations you might have heard about.
Relationships: Nyles/Sarah Wilder
Comments: 8
Kudos: 15
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	What We Do in the Time Loop

**Author's Note:**

  * For [htbthomas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/htbthomas/gifts).



It had been two weeks since the Nouveau Théâtre des Vampires debacle, and Guillermo still  couldn’t get used to sleeping in his grandmother’s house in Palm Springs. There was something odd about the way the floors creaked, or way the wind blew against the house. Every little noise had him waking up in a panic, his heart pounding, as he primed himself for some unknown threat.

It had to be the house, because otherwise, that would mean that something was off about his current situation—a vampire hunter, protecting vampires. And he  didn’t want to think about that. 

“Guillermo, the coffin lid is heavy!” Nandor groaned.

Guillermo pulled the pillow over his head, but he  couldn’t drown out the sound of someone clomping down the stairs. 

Laszlo yelled, “Gizmo, remind me never to feed on a band again. I don’t know what those guys were on, but I have the worst case of the shits ever, plus a raging hard-on, and  those side effects should not exist simultaneously.”

“Quit whining, Laszlo!”  Nadja shrieked. “I’d trade places with you in a minute. My sense of taste is all fucked up.  I’ve been vomiting blood all morning, and it tastes like water! Thick,  clumpy water!” 

_ Oh, god,  _ _ I’m _ _ going to have to clean all of that up. _

He decided  he’d rather face the scene downstairs than worry about the unknown . 

Guillermo got up and helped Nandor out of the coffin .  As Guillermo helped him dress, Nandor said, “It took you a while to get down here.”

Guillermo decided not to take the bait. “Yeah. It did.”

Nandor gave him a strange look but  didn’t say anything else. For the last few weeks,  he’d been alternating between angry outbursts, and cautious,  stilted conversations. 

Guillermo made his way downstairs. Thankfully,  Nadja hadn’t thrown up on the carpet, just the kitchen tile, which was  relatively easy to clean. There were bodies strewn around the kitchen and living room. A wave of revulsion crashed over him, which was odd. He thought  he’d gotten over any  squeamishness about the vampires’ kills long ago. But  he’d been having occasional flashes of reflexive nausea since the carnage at Celeste’s apartment. 

Still,  he’d been disposing of carcasses so long, he could do it in his sleep. Burying them in the backyard was a non-starter. His mother had no end of problems trying to sell the house after his grandmother died. He  wasn’t going to complicate that by adding a mass grave to the property. His resentment resurfaced. Why was it always his job to clean up? What if he left them here? But that would be unpleasant for Guillermo much earlier than it would be for Nandor, Laszlo, or  Nadja . He sighed and dragged the bodies into the garage.  He’d dump them somewhere else later.

Back in the kitchen, he attacked the blood stains. The tiles themselves were easy to clean; unfortunately, the  grout was not. 

As he headed out the door to make a grocery run, Colin Robinson intercepted him. “Can I come too? I need to get some more tuna so I can make my world-famous microwave tuna melts.”

Guillermo’s stomach lurched; microwaved fish was one of those scents that lingered for days and  wouldn’t fade in the background .  But as so often happened, Guillermo found himself saying, “Sure, no problem,” to something he  didn’t really want to do.

***

In the van, Guillermo’s brain felt slow, like the neurological equivalent of trudging through a heavy snowbank.

“It’s too bad we didn’t go up to Palm Springs a few weeks earlier,” Colin Robinson said. “We missed the Palm Desert Golf Cart Parade. Every year, more than one hundred golf carts are decorated for the parade. This year’s theme is ‘Let the Good Times Roll,” and they’re expecting over 25,000 spectators.”

Guillermo felt himself nodding off.

Colin Robinson continued  droning on, “--and reporters from as far away as the Philippines are expected to attend--”

A realization cut through the fog in Guillermo's brain. “Colin Robinson, I know you need to feed, but don’t drain me  _ while I’m driving _ _! _ If I pass out and crash the van, you could die.” 

“Huh, that’s true,” Colin Robinson said. “I’ll have to make up for it later.” 

_ Well,  _ _ that’s _ _ not ominous. Guess  _ _ that’s _ _ a problem for Future Guillermo. Right  _ _ now _ _ I just need to get us to and from the store in one piece _ .

***

Guillermo lingered in front of shelves of  grout cleaners. Did he want one with whitening ingredients? One that removed mold or  mildew ? Or one that was biodegradable? Finally, he told himself,  _ This _ _ is ridiculous.  _ _ I’ve _ _ killed several dozen vampires in the last few months. I will NOT be defeated by the Cleaning Supplies Aisle! _

He grabbed the one with biodegradable ingredients and looked for Colin Robinson.

He found the energy vampire standing in line near a grey-haired man with a booming voice. 

“--and the band fell off the face of the earth. How I am going to find a replacement at the last minute? The wedding needs to be perfect. We spent a fortune to reserve the ranch today.” 

“Oh, yeah, if the music is off, even a little bit, there’s no point in having a wedding.” Colin Robinson said. “That’s the kind of thing people complain about for years.” He grinned widely. 

The man ran his hand through his hair. “Oh, god, what am I going to do? I have a million other things to take care of today!” 

With a  feral look in his eyes, Colin Robinson abruptly changed course. “I have a couple of friends who are in a band. I’m sure they’d be glad to play at the wedding  tonight.”

_ Oh _ _ , you clever bastard. _

But it meant that Colin Robinson would have plenty of people to feed on instead of Guillermo.  So he  didn’t object.

“Oh, you’re a life-saver! Let me write you a check.” The man reached into his jacket pocket.

“No! We can’t take checks.” Guillermo blurted out. If the Vampiric Council  was after them,  they’d probably do some sort of locator spell. But they might be so angry that  they’d hire a human to track him through more conventional methods.

“Oh, that’s right.  You young people have your apps— what's it called?  Vendmo ? I don’t understand all that phone stuff.” The man reached into his wallet. “Here’s five hundred dollars cash.  I’ll give you the rest at the wedding tonight. It’s at Crescent Moon Ranch.”

***

That evening, Guillermo found himself sipping champagne, and marveling that somehow the evening  hadn’t been a complete fiasco. Nadja and Laszlo had recovered from the side effects of their  dinner, and were bored enough to agree to perform. The wedding guests had been a bit perplexed by  Nadja and Laszlo’s songs. But once they got to  _ Total Eclipse of the Heart _ (another song Laszlo claimed was stolen from him long ago), the annoyance melted away. No one batted an eye when Nadja and Laszlo switched back to unfamiliar music like  _ Cellular Telephone Craze _ .

Nandor was engaged in a spirited argument with the bride’s mother about whether the last Dream Team spot should have gone to Shaquille O’Neal or someone named Christian Laettner.

A few tables over, Colin Robinson was tormenting a young brunette woman. “Wow, so this is the thirteenth wedding you’ve gone to this year, and you still haven’t convinced your fella to pop the question? That’s gotta sting, watching other men commit to their girlfriends.”

Nadja and Laszlo segued into  _ Every Breath You Take,  _ and  Nadja ’s shrill voice made Guillermo  actually think about the lyrics for the first time _. _ _ Wow, that really was  _ _ kind of creepy _ _. I should have realized it was written by a vampire. _

There was a flash of movement out of the corner of Guillermo’s eye, and he was up and moving towards it before conscious thought. 

It was a man in a camouflage jacket carrying a  crossbow . His face was painted black and he had a headlamp on his cap. Was this another vampire hunter? One who was better equipped than the Mosquito Collectors of the Tri-State Area? 

Guillermo followed about fifty feet behind Camo-jacket Guy. As they moved away from the party into the desert, Guillermo’s steps sounded louder and louder to him. But Camo-jacket Guy  didn’t seem to notice; he seemed intent on tracking something else.

Camo-jacket Guy reached an  outcrop of rocks, where a man in a Hawaiian shirt and one of the bridesmaids were making out. They  didn’t look like vampires to Guillermo, which made Camo-jacket Guy’s pursuit even stranger. When Hawaiian-shirt Guy stood up to take off his clothes, Camo-jacket Guy shot an arrow into his back.

“ Owl ! Fuck!” Hawaiian-shirt Guy leaned forward, not looking particularly surprised by this turn of events. 

The bridesmaid screamed. “What the fuck is happening?”

“I thought I smelled you, you piece of shit!” Hawaiian-shirt Guy pulled the arrow out and ran away, Camo-jacket Guy in pursuit. The bridesmaid continued to  screech her confusion and fear.

Guillermo followed both men further into the desert. Camo-jacket Guy fired another arrow, this time hitting Hawaiian-shirt Guy’s leg.

“You’re a sick fuck, Roy!” Hawaiian-shirt Guy ran and hid behind some rocks.

Roy looked around for Hawaiian-shirt Guy, then walked into a cave that glowed with some strange light. “Keep running, shit-bird. I will always find you.”

Hawaiian-shirt Guy stumbled into the cave after him.

Instinct propelled Guillermo into the cave.

There was a rustling behind him. “Nyles?” The bridesmaid stood at the entrance of the cave. “Who the hell are these guys?”

“No, stop, don’t come in here!” Nyles turned to look back at her, and caught sight of Guillermo, and a look of confusion briefly crossed over his face. 

The bridesmaid moved into the cave. “Are you ok?”

Nyles waved an arm at them. “Both of you, get out of here now!”

Before Guillermo could act on that warning, the cave glowed bright red, and then the world went dark.

***

He awoke in his bedroom at his grandmother’s house, with no memory of how  he’d gotten home last night. Could he get blackout drunk on a couple of glasses of champagne? 

“Guillermo, the coffin lid is heavy!” Nandor groaned.

Guillermo gripped his forehead, willing the memories to return. 

Someone clomped down the stairs, and Laszlo yelled, “Gizmo, remind me never to feed on a band again. I don’t know what those guys were on, but I have the worst case of the shits ever, plus a raging hard-on, and  those side effects should not exist simultaneously.”

“Quit whining, Laszlo!”  Nadja shrieked. “I’d trade places with you in a minute. My sense of taste is all fucked up.  I’ve been vomiting blood all morning, and it tastes like water! Thick,  clumpy water!”

_ Wait,  _ _ that’s _ _ exactly what they said yesterday. Word for word. _

He ran downstairs and found the same corpses in the same configurations in the kitchen and living room.  Nadja ’s blood-vomit was spattered in the same patterns on the tile.

Okay. This was clearly some kind of spell or curse. It could be The Vampiric Council, but it was just as likely something that the vampires had blundered into last night. Guillermo’s best course of action was playing dumb and keeping to the same schedule. He should let people underestimate him until he could discreetly find a witch or magical coyote or something to reverse the spell.

He made the same trip to the grocery store, bought the same  grout cleaner, and let Colin Robinson make the offer to replace the band.

The day  proceeded exactly as he remembered until they arrived at the ranch for the wedding. The bride’s lips were swollen, and her eyes were puffy, as if  she’d been crying. The bridesmaid from last night was missing.

Nyles was there, though. The Hawaiian shirt was hard to miss. He was sitting by himself at the table with two drinks.

After some internal debate, Guillermo headed over to join him. 

Nyles shot him a weary glance. “You  wanna know what happened in the cave, right?”

Guillermo nodded. “I woke up this morning, and it was the same--”

“--as yesterday.” Nyles leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, that’s the way it’s gonna be from now on. It’s one of those repeating-day time loop situations.”

Guillermo thought for a minute. “You mean like  _ Edge of Tomorrow _ ?”

Nyles raised an eyebrow. “Well, that’s usually not the example that people bring up, but yeah.”

“I’m a big Tom Cruise fan,” Guillermo explained.

“Ah,” Nyles said. “And to answer your next question, there’s no way out, and I’m sorry, and I’m guessing you’re mad at me like everyone else.” 

Guillermo leaned forward. “ _ Everyone else _ ?”

“Everyone else who’s stuck in the time loop. Roy, the guy with the  bow last night. And Sarah, the bride’s sister. You both got zapped by  it last night.”

“She’s in the time loop? I haven’t seen her tonight.” Guillermo took off his glasses for a moment, looked down at them, and saw Nyles’ reflection in them. He  wasn’t a vampire.

Nyles squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “She wanted out. Insisted on going back in the cave. I told her it would just restart the day for her, but she  had to find out the hard way . Again.”

“So, it’s the cave that’s the key to this--?” Guillermo refrained from adding the words “spell” or “curse” to the question. Nyles might not know about the supernatural world. 

“Yup. It’s just a cave with multiverse powers, as far as I can tell.” Nyles turned towards the stage. “Did she just sing she was horny for  blood? This band is so much better than the first one.”

One detail still confused Guillermo. “So--Roy? Is he going to show up with the  crossbow soon?”

“Nah. He doesn’t always come all the way to the wedding. And the next time, he’ll probably change things up with an AK-47 or nunchucks.”

That  didn’t sound like a vampire hunter. Guillermo had completely mis-read the chase last night and had trapped himself here based on a mistake. He buried his head in his hands.

“Hey, chin up.  I’ve been here a long time, and there are ways to make the most of it. Last night, when you and your band showed up, I thought it might be the end of the loop, because it was finally something new. But when I woke up this morning like I always do, I was relieved.  It's sort of comforting to know exactly  what’s going to happen, and not to have to worry about tomorrow. I can spend all my cash and know it will be back the next morning. And the wedding’s  usually happy , you know?  It’s not all bad.  It’s like a coloring book. There’s only one outline, but you can use whatever colors you want.” 

Nyles got up and glided a cross the floor, dodging all of the dancers effortlessly on his way to the bar. 

Guillermo’s head throbbed. He decided to head home for a quiet night without the vampires. The vampires could get home by turning into bats, and Colin Robinson was a  daywalker so  he’d be ok.

He spent the rest of the evening eating ice cream and watching Great British Bake Off. Sometime between the Technical Challenge and the Showstopper, he fell asleep in front of the TV.

***

Guillermo awoke the next morning in his bed at his grandmother’s house.

“Guillermo, the coffin lid is heavy!” Nandor groaned.

Clomping, then  Laszlo: “Gizmo, remind me never to feed on a band again. I don’t know what those guys were on, but I have the worst case of the shits ever, plus a raging hard-on, and  those side effects should not exist simultaneously.”

“Quit whining, Laszlo!”  Nadja shrieked. “I’d trade places with you in a minute. My sense of taste is all fucked up.  I’ve been vomiting blood all morning, and it tastes like water! Thick,  clumpy water!”

Nyles was right. Guillermo could do anything he wanted, and the day would reset.

***

Over the next few weeks, (months? It was hard to tell) Guillermo consulted the handful of occult books  he’d packed for the escape. There was no mention of a spell or curse doing anything like a time loop. The web  didn’t have anything promising either, though that might have been a problem with finding the right search terms. “Time loop” was a great term to find a movie, but he suspected that witches and other magic-users would use more antiquated language. 

He  didn’t just spend his days researching. It had been years since his last visit to Palm Springs; now he had all the time in the world to explore it again. Some days he showed up at the grocery store and the wedding to collect the cash, then drove to Los Angeles to blow it all at expensive steakhouses or sushi restaurants .  He rode the tramway, visited the Art Museum, and drove through the windmill tour that  he’d loved when he was a kid. Other days he skipped the grocery store and the wedding and tried to enjoy himself on a limited budget .  He found some great unheralded pleasures, like the green corn tamales from that a woman sold from a cooler in front of Home Depot.

When missed he vampires,  he ’d s pend the day taking care of them as he usually did. But those days seemed to stretch farther and farther away.  Ma ybe it w as hard to find motivation to repeat these tasks, when the vampires started the days  ex actly the same ,  no matter what Guillermo had done the night before.

Occasionally,  he’d hang out at the wedding, in the hope of talking to Nyles or Sarah, the only other people who would understand the endless  constriction of this day. They were absent from the wedding as often as they were present. When they were there, they had something very intense going on between them. Guillermo felt like an  interloper , and Sarah radiated a fierce energy that scared him. He limited his interactions to brief greetings or sometimes just waving “hi” in their direction.

At some point, something happened between Nyles or Sarah; she stopped attending the wedding altogether, and Nyles’ antics at the wedding changed from playful to weird and depressing. 

***

One morning, Guillermo opted to collect the cash from the bride's dad at the grocery store in the morning and blow the rest of the day off. There was a diner  he’d been meaning to visit. 

Halfway through his club sandwich, he realized that the person in the booth across from him looked familiar. It was Sarah, focusing intently on her laptop. 

When  he’d finished his lunch, he walked over to her booth. “Hey, Sarah.”

She looked up, and after a moment’s confusion, she said, “Hey--Guillermo, right?”

He nodded. “I haven’t seen you in a while. Are you ok?”

“Yeah.” She waved a hand at the laptop. “I’ve just been busy trying to find a way out.”

“Really? What are you looking at?”  Maybe she’d had better luck finding a curse or a spell .  “Maybe I could help.”

She slid the laptop over so he could see the screen. “Quantum physics.”

“Oh.”  He’d been so dialed-in on the supernatural solutions to the time loop, he  hadn’t even thought of  _ natural  _ solutions. “Yeah, I probably can’t help. I barely passed high school physics. How long have you been studying?”

“A few months, I think. I’m about halfway through the undergrad courses.”

“Wow, you must  _ really _ want to leave.” He felt a pang of inadequacy.  He’d just drifted through the time loop without a plan;  she’d spent that time working her ass off to save them. 

“It’s not a question of want. I  _ need  _ to move on with my life.” she said flatly, in a tone that left no room for follow-up questions.

“I get that. Um, it was nice seeing you.” He turned to leave.

“Wait! Give me your phone number, so I can text you if I find a way out.” 

As he wrote the number down on a napkin, her face softened into a more vulnerable expression. “Please don’t tell Nyles what I’m doing. I want to surprise him when I’m done.” 

“I won’t, I promise.” He paused, wondering if he was overstepping, but plowed forward anyway. “I’ve seen him at the wedding a few times.  I think he misses you.”

“Well, duh, of course he does.” She grinned, once again confident and a little terrifying.

***

One evening several weeks (or months) after his conversation with Sarah, Guillermo returned from a day trip to Dana Point. He checked his phone for the first time in  hours, and swore.

Sarah had found a way back. He hurried back to the ranch, even though he knew it was  probably too late to talk to her before she left. 

As Guillermo looked for Nyles or Sarah, Nandor approached. “Where the fuck have you been?”

Guillermo cringed, more out of habit than real distress. “I’m sorry. What did you need me to do?”

Nandor huffed. “Nothing yet. But I might have needed something, and you were nowhere to be found.” He gripped the lapels of Guillermo’s jacket. “Let me remind you--” 

The sentence ended in a grunt as a stake went through his chest. He fell to the ground and  didn’t move.

“Nandor!” Guillermo’s fists clenched. A jolt of too-late adrenaline coursed through him.

After a moment, he  turned to the assailant, an elderly woman in a cream sequined jacket and dress. It was Nana Schlieffen, the groom’s grandmother. 

“Oh, dear, was he a friend of yours?” Nana sighed. “Sometimes my vampire hunter instincts get overactive.  He looked like he was threatening you. I’ve been watching you all interact every time you show up at the wedding .”

He gaped at her. He wanted to say, “You’re in the time loop? And  you’re a vampire hunter, too?” but words weren’t coming out. 

Nana patted his shoulder. “Let’s sit down and talk about it.”

***

“I don’t have much to say about vampire hunting.” Nana said. “I discovered I had a talent for in 1948. I was a  freshman at Mills College. My roommate and I were walking back to our dorm from the library, when some vampires jumped us.” Her face hardened;  somehow she was still angry about it a half-century later. “I just ripped a fence picket out of the ground and downed them, one by one. And I never looked back. But  I’m terribly curious about you. How on earth did you become friends with a vampire?”

“Nandor promised to make me a vampire if I became his familiar for a while,” Guillermo said.

“And why would you want that?”

“I thought they were cool.” At her  incredulous expression, he added, “It’s not how I feel now. After ten years of watching them  bumble around,  it’s definitely not so glamorous. And a few months ago, I watched a bunch of people I knew get eaten by vampires, and  it’s starting to lose its shine. But Nandor and Laszlo and  Nadja are my friends and I don’t know what to do about them now that I’m a vampire hunter.”

“Well, dear, I don’t know what to say about your friends. I never befriended a vampire myself. You could stay in the time loop for a while and test different approaches with them to find  some kind of truce . The worst thing that happens is that they kill you and the day starts again.”

“Wow, I never thought of that!” Somehow it had never occurred to him that he  didn’t need to fear death. “Oh, that’s funny. I just remembered another reason I wanted to be a vampire.  It’s because I liked the idea of living forever. That part I still like.”

Nana smiled and waved at Jerry Schiefflin as he walked by. “If you decided to stay in the time loop, you could live forever without hurting anyone else.”

“ That’s why  you’re staying, isn’t it? To live forever.” Guillermo said.

“Oh, I don’t know about forever. That’s a long time.” Nana said. “But my whole family is together for the first time in ten years. My brain’s still working, my trick knee  isn’t bothering me, and I can drink as much as I want without paying for it the next day.  I’m going to enjoy this day  as long as I can. I can always blow myself up later.” 

A sense of direction settled over Guillermo for the first time since  he’d walked into the cave. “I think I’ll stick around for a while. I can always blow myself up later, too.”

Nana asked, “Will you come to the wedding and visit me every now and then? I love my family, but it’s a bit lonely when you’re the only one who knows there’s a time loop.”

“Absolutely,” Guillermo said. “I’d like that.”


End file.
